Principal's Report

It really has been a busy and productive term at LPS. Our year 1/2s have finished an intensive week of swimming at Kyneton, they made great progress and had so much fun as well. A massive thank you to our helpers Aaron, Callum and Luke for giving up their own time to come along and help organise the boys throughout the week.  

Our staff had a fabulous professional practice day this past Tuesday focusing on maths, reading and social and emotional learning at LPS. We are really proud of the progress we are making with our switch to direct instruction and whole school consistent approaches to both maths and reading. 

We investigated the best ways to use our new platform Decodable Readers Australia (DRA), a resource mainly being used from prep to year 2. Did you know that our junior students can access the following resources online at home through DRA...

Books set at levels by their teacher

Phonics videos- phonemic awareness, sound hunt, consolidation

Phonics practice- hear the sounds feature

117 phonics, spelling and morphology lessons

Sight words – correlating to books they are reading

Decoding help – sounds out then blends

Fluency help – read to me function

Rewards and stickers

At Lancefield PS we are taking a structured literacy instruction approach. We know that understanding how we learn to read is derived from cognitive psychology and neuroscience research and that learning to read is not a natural skill that you are born with. We also recognise that teacher knowledge and skills are critical. Our phonics approach is explicit and systematic and we build from the bottom up with working on component parts and enabling student to transfer reading skills independently. As I pointed out in our last newsletter, decodable texts are vital for initial support for learning to read.

Our work in maths and numeracy (mathematics gives students access to important mathematical ideas, knowledge and skills whilst numeracy connects this learning with students personal and everyday lives) is focused on upskilling teachers to use worked examples and have a deeper understanding of cognitive load of students.

We also continued our SWPBS work with a focus on classroom routines and procedures and the science of behaviour. 

This week at assembly we were presented with a Blue Award from the Department of Education in recognition for all of our hard work in the SWPBS space and our ongoing commitment to creating a more positive and effective learning environment for all. Thank you to Kerry Hammond (our SWPBS regional coach) and Pauline Cavalot (DET Health, Well-being and Specialist Services) for attending our assembly and presenting our year 6 leaders with this very special recognition.

Reconciliation Week

We have received this lovely message from Children's Ground - fundraising for Wear it Yellow Day.

Dear Lancefield Primary School, I firstly want to say that how grateful I am for your support of Children’s Ground. You have continued to walk with us and you can see the incredible outcomes that occur when First Nations solutions and voices are leading change.  Without you we would not be at this point. We have a new generation of children having a start to life that just did not exist before.  We have been able to reach more families and young people and we are seeing big changes in our communities. Our work is growing, and getting stronger every day, and you have played a vital role in getting us here